Paul Graveson
In Biggles Goes Alone, Paul Graveson was the nineteen year old son of retired oil prospecter Mr Graveson and his wife. The family were longterm residents of the Southview Hotel in the Cornish seaside village of Polstow and became acquainted with Biggles when he took an enforced holiday there. Biggles tried to make contact with Paul but found him an anemic, unsociable, neurotic person who much preferred to be left alone. During his long stay at Polstow, it was natural for Paul to become attracted to Vera Harrington, one of the most popular girls in the village, The two became friendly and Paul took her to dinner several times at the hotel. Unfortunately for Paul, when Vera was found dead under mysterious circumstances, he was briefly taken in for questioning by the police as he was the last person to have seen her alive. His position was made worse when a bottle of cyanide was found in his wardrobe. Paul had an off-hand, disrespectful attitude to his parents which did not endear him to the other residents of the hotel such as Captain Gower who immediately jumped to the conclusionthat he must have killed Vera. Biggles was however not so sure. He did not think Paul was capable of murder and some of the facts of Vera's death just did not add up. Paul was later released and allowed to stay with his parents at the hotel pending further police enquiries. However, one night, Biggles caught him trying to run away in his car. Biggles told Paul he would only make his case worse by attempting to run away. He did not believe Paul had killed Vera and would help him prove his innocence but first Paul must tell the truth. Biggles now confronted Paul with some discrepancies in his story to the police, namely that he had taken half an hour to walk to Vera's house but only ten minutes to walk back. Paul admitted that he had stopped on the way to Vera's house. He had gone to Truro but had forgotten to buy Vera some roses as he had promised. So he decided to cut half a dozen roses from the garden of Dr Augustus Venner, who was Vera's neighbour. These he gave to Vera together with a box of chocolates. After talking with Vera for about half an hour, he left. Paul later lied to the police and concealed the fact that he had stolen the roses from Dr Venner. As for the cyanide, it was only used once in a while in the killing jar used for his butterfly collecting hobby and he hadn't touched it for months. Paul insisted that he could not have killed Vera. He was in love with her. It was bad enough that she had died. But to be accused of her murder was just too much to take. Paul did not appear in the book again. He became reclusive and spent most of the time in his room. Thus it is not known how the story ended for him, and how, for example, he reacted when Biggles finally uncovered the real killer and cleared Paul at the end of the book. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Air Police era characters